Things I’ve learned this week

Today, I learned a new word – Saudade. It basically means a vague longing for some pristine moment that has passed, or a longing for something undefinable that might not even exist. An itch you can’t scratch, an itch that makes you real sad.

So being the melancholic bastard that I am (the word bastard is gender neutral, right?), I’ve immediately taken to it.

Gaze veiled
by her long black hair,
if you took a hand
and parted it
you’d find
longing;
terrible and silent
rippling across oceans and seas.
Thus her eyes are
eyes you dare not meet.

And when you sleep
can your mind muster
the dreams she dreams?

of placid skies,
far-off seagulls’ cries,
and finding the answer,
finally,
to quiet sighs
exhaled in the night.

It’s a bit cliche, I think, in some parts, but i think the key to being a poet is the same key to enjoying sex. You just have to let go of the self consciousness and realize that some people are going to find you ridiculous.

But ridiculousness comprises the most minute details of our lives. It’s ridiculous that some of us commute to work in a tube deep underground, like we’re the kidney stones of a very large metal snake. It’s ridiculous that we go to clubs and wave our arms and legs around while shooting sexy but noncommittal looks at strangers. It’s ridiculous that people go around wearing 3,000 dollar suits and don’t really think about the fact that those suits are made of the same material as a 300 dollar suit, and both wearers probably fart while wearing them, anyways.

So I guess what I’m trying to tell myself more often is that everyone is ridiculous, I might as well look foolish doing the thing I love most – farting in designer suits.

Also. I realized again that I am intensely afraid of my parents dying. Not mainly because I feel sad that they might not be around to see sunsets and their grandkids, but because that would be one more veil torn down between me and the horrible aloneness. Who would I fall back on?

That’s really selfish.

Back in my day, books were made of paper!

Sorry no people who are reading this, for the lack of updates, but wordpress is excruciatingly slow in China. Facebook, youtube, blogspot…are blocked, which means I can’t access Tom and Lorenzo and get my Project Runway related bitchery, nor can I indulge in my secret maudlin passion – Reading Postsecret.com and crying into my Monday morning chicken soup.

The facebook blockage is kind of nice because I’m on my island, and I’m not sucked into peoples’ daily drama ramas, or who the fuck cares-dramas, but I’m afraid if I do return to the states, I will be like rip van winkle, or that sad dude in that one japanese myth about the turtle. No one will remember me and my rude wife will have died.

And you-tube, well, it’s self explanatory. I’ve avoided watching a kids’ production of scar face, and a show by some trashy bitch named Beth Ditto. I would have watched both those things out of a pure slutty need for base distractions, and that’s basically how I kept being an accountant for two years; desperate in Phoenix.

Here, it’s better, after I play my obligatory 10 games of 3D pinball and finish reading dlisted.com with its usual putterings-on about cooing nipples and Anderson Cooper’s winking bumhole, I can force myself to write something.

Oh yeah. I was reading about the iPad today. excuse me for jumping on the bandwagon. Anyways. I don’t like it. I could accept it when it was just a phone. Phones are a marginal part of our lives, but I cannot accept this weird integrated computer appliance robot thing that simulates the reading experience.

‘Scuse me, but why does the reading experience need to be simulated? It’s a book. It weighs 4 ounces. It smells nice and has your hand germs and other peoples’ hand germs on it – such is the tapestry of the moments we’ve spent idle.

No matter how hard I try to DNA all over an ipad, it will not bend and morph in testament to my loving hand, unless i put it under a very hot heat-lamp or something, and those scary geniuses at Apple probably made it all heat and laser proof too.

Isn’t this an example of what Wikipedia has been telling me about  simulacra and simulation, aka what the Matrix trilogy was about except they got it wrong according to Baudrillard. Replacing a book with a symbol of a book, except a book kind of simulates reality as well, so it’s a symbol of a symbol of reality, except the reading experience is real, and i’m confused. Also, reading about Baudrillard on wikipedia is also a simulation of reality. OMFG the distinction between reality and simulation is broken down!

I’m being dramatic, but I feel like the advent of this device is one of those turning points in my life, which i will be able to point at an say “before it came, I felt young, after it arrived, I started to feel old.” Which is ridiculous to say at 24, yet, yet, yet…

I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled

here’s the first paragraph of a short story I’m working on. Who knows, you could be reading it on your wretched, wretched iPad:

Cherry Darymple didn’t give a shit. She trudged along as the sun beat down, insufferably hot. Humidity bloated and rippled around her. She felt the flab on her belly swell past the waistband of her jeans, felt it crawl free, a separate entity. Any other day she would be ashamed, but she no longer gave a shit. Never mind the efforts she’d made this morning forcing her thighs into three pairs of control-top panty hose. Never mind that her current exertions rendered her shower useless. Cherry Darymple wiped the dew drops of sweat off her great white forehead. She was on a mission – going to kick the neighborhood bitch.

I’m going to go work on it now.

.

.

oh who’m I kidding. I’m going to go play more fuckin’ pinball and then watch southpark on Chinese you-tube.

Diminishing

“Hello hello? Is anyone there?”

The echoes resonate off the sides of the deep copper pot into which I’m yelling.

Been feeling very alien lately, and just now realized that wordpress is no longer blocked in China. Hooray.

I’m still editing Wandering Eyes, but if completion was a bit torrent, my DL speed would be  around 0.2 kb/s. Waking up every day at 11:45, cursing, because I’m late for work again. I bought two alarm clocks and I hide them in the dresser drawers before bed each night, but when they ring they do not wake me up. So I must be sleepwalking to turn them off.

It’s damp outside . And I ride close behind strange men on their motorcycle taxis, and that’s all the human touch I get.

Needless to say I’m lonely.

We are objects upon objects

stacked in space.

Some weeping

some cackling -

all voiceless eventually.

After work

my hips dip

into the rotund proximity

of another  subway car stranger,

together we hurtle through the darkness toward more objects and loneliness and dissolution in space, then:

up the escalators

through turnstiles

around cheap locks

into faded motel slippers

by the fold-out bed

and even the garbage is enfolded

by it’s boyfriend – Bin.

Prepositional

constructs of

an extraterrestrial life.

Exodus

The day the walls disappeared,
agoraphobia spread its viscous fingers,
I wondered at the suddenness of space,
the purpose of broad plains,
flight.

Vertigo
at the absence
of sullen hands
that brought jello cups
and compartmentalized corn.

Scents of the unknown
sharp and cold.

What scenery could be
more reassuring than the commode,
what traditions
more familiar than the must of bibles,
of nightlit books and coarse blankets,
what purpose to departure?

Except
Except
half-scribbled questions
half dreamt dreams unremembered in desperation
crumpled under the mildewed sink like:
How far does the sky spread?
And, where does the nightingale go,
after she has sung her songs
and abandons my window?

New Poems in Progress

You slip to sleep,

I lay my head

on your pillow.

Absorb the whisper

of your steady breath -

in, out, in.

All night

you burn next to me,

a live radiator

that hums through my bones,

jars loose

the persistent ghost -

the doubt that has been nipping

my heels, that threads a needle

through my brow.

I sink now

with peace in my arms,

but how will I come to sleep

when you are gone?

——————————–

The burnt pancake landscape

retreats behind me,

sun beats down

on my left forearm,

this land is remaking me

brown.

————————————-

I’m naked in a wide,

forgotten field.

The tall grass is

the color of summer’s forgetfulness -

blood orange and burnt red.

Wind licks the the borders of my vision,

I watch distant gathering clouds

announce the approach

of winter’s gray ravens

in a storm of fallen feathers.

Night Owl

When I wake up
the sun’s going down,
last bit of light is cast
through the window
gold on the walls.

Dressed or undressed
doesn’t really matter
I spend the night
distracting myself
till the day rises again.

Abrasive, it reveals
my cottage cheese underbelly -
a coward’s gut.
Doubts and Fears
are gnomes in the corners
that can’t hide in daylight.

Which is why
I shut tight my eyes
and try to sleep the honest day away.

Cherries and Noodles

Tumble downstairs;
it’s three fifteen,
the fridge is full-up somehow
with cherries and noodles.

Now I remember,
dad came this morning
laden with food
after a Costco trip.

Left his truck outside
and pissed-off my neighbor.
He had to run out to stop her.
She was screaming:
“move your fucking truck!”

Shrill bitch.
I want to leave insidious notes like:
“your body odor is overpowering.” and
“do not believe you are alone,
when walking to the mailbox.”

Let it go.
Heat the noodles.
Pick out the rotten cherries
that are frosted with mold,
that stare at me
with their fungus eyes.

Cherries in a deep blue bowl,
water steadily rising.

Take it all in hand,
but the noodles burn me.
Suddenly it’s cherries
flying through the air
like confetti,
and noodles scattered
across the carpet.

Somehow it’s beautiful

watch out for the robots, dude

Went to china, bought a toy robot, and dried squid, and lost shoes and dresses, and spread my seed all over.

Ok that last bit is false, I have no seed to spread. It’s 5:58 AM, how I hate and love jet lag, all at once. Anyways, I wrote some stuff, must document it:

Half asleep on the train,

eyes shuttering open and closed,

the land flashes before me

green beyond green, interposed

against the sky.

My mind is a lithograph, etched

in acid green.

I close my eyes and see

the beautiful country.

——————————–

This city is called

summer’s doorway.

I am at the museum

of ethnic Chinese abroad,

I am ethnically Chinese,

abroad in China.

There is a tree in this yard

bursting with red blossoms,

a tree that looks like autumn.

It is so close,

seasons change like going back in time.

Thunder in the distance -

I want a deluge,

a falling sky,

disaster disaster

so I’m left bereft

of thoughts about home.

————————————

A tree

with cloud stacked leaves a sunset

of orange blossoms

tipped in white.

Dead flowers dust parked cars below.

A man approaches for a photo.

——————————————-

I played under a backyard tree,

picked the purple blossoms -

wild looking things,

violet insects with egg-white antaenna.

I picked the wrong blossom,

its bee stung me

and sent me crying to mama

who bade me sleep

in the dark afternoon

living room.

Ever after

tree and I,

watched each other

from afar.

—————————–

Cicadas drown sound,

people on the street

in faux silk blouses

their pants rolled up

ankle length

weave between weaving cars.

I lift my shirt

for a summer breeze.

———————–

I fucking hate

these smug middle-aged business men

with their hands placed

jauntily on their hips

reeking self-satisfaction.

I bet their prostates

are the size of their precious blackberries.

—————————————–

In the club

he wore a crisp white shirt

and smelled of sweat and cologne

of rumbling bass.

He knew how

to move my hips

and touch my waist

like he was carefully

polishing a vase.

He knew how to put a smile

on my close-eyed face.

But when he said

“Go home with me tonight,

one night”

I never could have.

Nightmares!!!!!!!!!!

Dark have been my dreams of late, but reality is so tepid, I don’t want to wake.

At least the murderous nightmares are exciting. Last night I tracked down my rapist and slashed his face with a dagger and wrote his crimes on his countenance.

Anyways, that inspired this:

He sings a song that scratches against my nerves, like a razor on stubble

I sleep silent,
bones still.
Hear footsteps
toll down alleyways.

The rain drips and taps
its echoes across my ear drums.

I feel cockroaches skitter
on wire-thin legs
over stone streets.
Their shells are
smooth and clean -
a-glitter in lamplight.

I wander
in a labrynth.
Going deeper,
deeply lost.

The night stretches
and lengthens,
funhouse mirrors
reflect and distort
the flash of a knife.
It slashes and writes
on a hollow-faced eye.

Red is the only color.

I open my eyes for
the faraway light

and hear a fly.

Sudden sunlight
lacerates,
precise as a scalpel
and I am laid bare.

I close my eyes against
this sterile dawn,
slink toward the comfort
of shadows, of moonlight,
but the fly won’t land,
he keeps buzzing by.

So I’ve been gone

Ok.

I quit my auditing job on Monday, right after I got back from Italy. I shouldn’t have done that, because now I don’t have a job, and I DO have a mortgage. The reason I did was because. Oh IDIOCY, they didn’t want to promote me because I wasn’t passionate about accounting, despite the fact that I met my budgets, and do my job efficiently and well. Whatever. It’s the truth, and if it’s the truth that I’m not passionate about what I do, I shouldn’t do it, right?

I just chose to do it at the wrong time. This is two weeks now, before I go on the China Trip with my University as their translator/TA, and I realized that if I hadn’t quit, I wouldn’t be so screwed for money. I could’ve waited till I got back, found another job, and then quit my job.

Now I HAVE found another job, but because it starts like next week, I can’t go to China. And I need to have income for at least the next three months.

In three months, I am going to move to China to write a screenplay with my friend who lives in Beijing. Hopefully, he’ll have a dayjob lined up for me at that time. If he doesn’t, I’ll still go, I think, and live on my savings, and hope the screenplay pans out well. He has a potential buyer lined up for it, and the income from that would set me us for two or three years in China without a job. Then we could look for more screenplays to write, I’d have time to focus on my writing, and get some real stuff accomplished.

But if I want savings for the time we’re writing the screenplay, I HAVE to work, right now.

I shouldn’t have quit in such a fit of passion. GOD DAMMIT.

So between now and August, I have to rent out my place, secure a job in China, and save up mondo money.

It’s a big change, the future looks bright, my emotions are fluctuating from extreme optimism and joy to utter fear. It’s like I’m hang gliding above a bottomless pit, you know? It’s like I’m a leaf on the wind.

Also, my man and I would have to separate for nine months until he graduates and joins me in China to teach english.

I’m so stressed that I can’t sleep for hours at night, and usually I’m out like a light. I actually spent most of Tuesday night unable to sleep, trembling through my fingers, in anticipation and in fear of uncertainty.

I haven’t written in a week, and I know that it’s because of the whirlwind that’s going on, but I’m afraid to get rusty. Anyways, that’s why I have been gone.

Wish me luck, whoever out there is reading.

Actually it’s a lie that I haven’t written I did write one, but usually I write like two or three a day. Anyway, here it is: a poem I wrote a few days ago about Arizona heat, and how much I hate it.
High frequency scream
felt between my eyes.
Blocked up paradox
of a horrible vast sky
imprinted in each minute cone
of my flowering iris eye.

My body is arid,
smooth sandstone.
Yellow with fever,
unnatural dry

Sweat makes hidden pools
where my back
touches the ground.
Oases bloom behind knees
and pool under palms.

When I roll into shade,
the sweat’s a shadow
that fades in beats
before wide bleached eyes.